Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings events separated by centuries in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Second Age into a shorter television timeline. Its parallel storylines follow Elven realms, Dwarven halls, human settlements and the island kingdom of Númenor.
Amazon announced in 2017 that it had acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings with a multi-season commitment. The series debuted in 2022 and takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Condensing the Second Age
Speaking before the 2022 premiere, showrunner J.D. Payne said the creators chose to combine major Second Age narratives into one story. These included the forging of the Rings of Power, Sauron’s rise and the history of Númenor. Following the original chronology would have meant replacing mortal characters as centuries passed, he explained.
Payne said the adaptation moved some events earlier and others later. He also said the team worked closely with the Tolkien Estate to obtain its blessing for the timeline changes.
Fellow showrunner Patrick McKay described continuity as a reason for the compression. “That means you can’t stop for 200 years and have half your cast die every two episodes,” he said in 2022.
The ensemble includes Galadriel, whose search for Sauron is a central storyline, alongside Elrond, Celebrimbor and Durin. Other strands follow the people of Númenor and the Southlands, bringing several societies into a television narrative drawn from Tolkien’s much longer fictional history.
Geography across parallel storylines
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy follows the quest to destroy the One Ring. The Rings of Power moves among several regional stories, with settings including the Elven realms of Lindon and Eregion, the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm and Númenor.
Geography was also part of Tolkien’s writing process. He developed maps while writing The Lord of the Rings between 1937 and 1949. A map of Rohan, Gondor and Mordor, dated approximately 1948, helped him plot the action in Book 5. Christopher Tolkien redrew it for publication in The Return of the King.
Building an earlier Middle-earth
In 2022, McKay described the series’ intended relationship to Jackson’s films as “different but familiar.” The production depicts Middle-earth in an earlier age, including kingdoms whose subsequent histories form part of the background to The Lord of the Rings.
Production designer Ramsey Avery said the team worked to give Númenor 3,000 years of visual history. He described architectural layers progressing from Elven influence toward human forms and, eventually, designs expressing opposition to Elven influence. His references included Venice and ancient Babylonian, Sumerian and Minoan architecture.
Avery also described limits on the available budget and stage space. The Hall of Law repurposed another set, using scroll cabinets to conceal existing walls. He said those walls served as three different sets in the series.
